Starry nights and sunflowers…

Hooking the audience, setting the scene, getting the story started and encouraging people to stay with it – all in a few carefully chosen words – intros are key.

So what’s the secret of a great intro? “Go straight for the main point,” says Melvyn Bragg, whose openers for 1,000+ episodes of In Our Time over the past 26 years are standout examples of how to get it right. Here he his at the outset of the episode on Vincent Van Gogh:

“Hello. Starry nights and sunflowers, self-portraits and simple chairs. These are images known the world over and Vincent Van Gogh painted them and around 900 others in the last decade of his short, brilliant life. And famously, by the time he’d killed himself when he was only 37, he’d only sold one. Yet within a few decades after his death, these extraordinary works, with all their colour and life, became the most desirable of all modern art, propelled, in part, by the story of this artist’s struggle with mental health.”

So much poured so lyrically into half a minute or so of outstanding intro. Thanks Melvyn, and wishing you all the best as you move on from In Our Time.